Docverter
Web and SaaS
document conversion api
SHOW HN2012
58points
42comments
#398of 1,677 in 2012
Top 24%of 2012 by points
How HN took it
CuriousMostly questions and neutral comments
6 positive, 11 neutral or asking, 0 mixed, 2 critical, out of 19 comments about the project. Thread score +0.19.
Idea: 4 for, 0 againstDocs: 1 for, 1 againstPricing: 1 for, 0 againstExecution: 0 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Useful for avoiding self-hosted conversion setup
From 2 comments
I don't think it's bad faith at all. They're up front about what tools the system is built on. It's more about whether it makes the most sense for you to build and host something…
lentil on HNThis looks great (and is something I'll very likely use on a project I'm working on now!) My quick "dumb" question -- what's the pitch for using this vs. what I would call more…
nlh on HN
Competitive pricing and a free dev plan
From 2 comments
I'm impressed someone has had the balls to launch a service without a free-tier. Note that there is a developer's access plan for free though, so no moaning!
alexchamberlain on HNLooks great. If you added docx and pptx to the inputs then you could easily compete with some big names (your prices are very competitive).
liamk on HN
Objections
Mostly a wrapper around pandoc and Flying Saucer, with copied docs
From 2 comments
What does this add to pandoc? In other words, why would I pay for this service? It obviously runs in the cloud, but I haven't found much else. In fact, my observation is that the…
pestaa on HNAlso, for what it's worth the author was very open and explicit about the provenance. In the footer: "This is a copy of the Pandoc README file, modified to suit Docverter's…
rodw on HN
Pricing does not suit occasional single conversions
From 1 comment
This is likely a service I'd use once in a while. Say I want to convert an html to mobi once per month, the listed pricings do not fit my use case. That means one conversion for…
eblade on HN
Requests
Support DOCX and PPTX as input formats
From 2 comments
Looks great. If you added docx and pptx to the inputs then you could easily compete with some big names (your prices are very competitive).
liamk on HNThanks. I added docx and pptx inputs to the todo list. I'll have to look into how to parse them into HTML.
zrail on HN
URL to PDF conversion
From 2 comments
Are you going to add a way to convert urls to pdfs? It would be awesome to create a pdf of a webpage from the push of a button.
pknight on HNI was actually just talking to someone else about that over email. It's definitely possible, I just haven't had time to explore it yet.
zrail on HN
Examples page with sample outputs
From 2 comments
This is super cool. One thing that would be useful is an "examples" page. That is, have some sample .txt or .html files, and show us what the output .doc, .docx, .pdf, .epub, etc…
memset on HNThank you for the kind words. There are a few examples on the API page in the Advanced section but you're right, they should be featured more prominently. Also, the free dev plan…
zrail on HN
Pay-per-use pricing
From 1 comment
This is likely a service I'd use once in a while. Say I want to convert an html to mobi once per month, the listed pricings do not fit my use case. That means one conversion for…
eblade on HN
Questions
What does this add over running pandoc directly?
From 2 comments
Is there any benefit to this over simply running Pandoc?
lrem on HNWhat does this add to pandoc? In other words, why would I pay for this service? It obviously runs in the cloud, but I haven't found much else. In fact, my observation is that the…
pestaa on HN
Does it handle tables and Word styling in DOCX output?
From 1 comment
Can this service handle more complex structures like converting a table in Textile or Markdown into a Table in docx? Can it handle word styling? I'm building software where the…
evolve2k on HN
Can PDFs be watermarked and password protected?
From 1 comment
Can you watermark and password protect pdf files? If so this would be a great service for selling ebooks.
don_draper on HN
Alternatives named
Pandoc
From 2 comments
Is there any benefit to this over simply running Pandoc?
lrem on HNWhat does this add to pandoc? In other words, why would I pay for this service? It obviously runs in the cloud, but I haven't found much else. In fact, my observation is that the…
pestaa on HN
Prince
From 1 comment
We've been using phantomjs, but it has it's issues too. I'm not sure there is a good solution anywhere in the open source world unfortunately - and tools like prince are expensive.
sciboy on HN
PhantomJS
From 1 comment
We've been using phantomjs, but it has it's issues too. I'm not sure there is a good solution anywhere in the open source world unfortunately - and tools like prince are expensive.
sciboy on HN